


I’ll miss you

by icelyvelvet



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Gen, M/M, Not A Fix-It, POV Bucky Barnes, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Spoilers, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 15:39:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18607486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icelyvelvet/pseuds/icelyvelvet
Summary: There’s warmth in the air and a faint smile on Bucky’s face. He’s happy, he truly is. So why was there a tightness in his chest? It felt wrong that slightly, just slightly, his heart was breaking apart into little pieces.———————————————————————————The talk before the ending and what happens after.





	I’ll miss you

Steve sometimes looks like he isn’t here. 

It’s greatly disturbing to Bucky because he knows all of Steve’s faces. From the bright optimism he plasters on to make people feel better even when he’s feeling entirely opposite in the inside, to the tight, concentrated look he has when he’s worrying over something. But never like this. Lost in the distance, his blue eyes gazing out into something Bucky can’t see. An easy answer would be to pin it on Tony Stark’s passing. He died an honorable death, surrounded by friends and people who loved him. Countless people would miss him. Bucky himself feels a pang of regret for never getting the chance to express the guilt for what he did, involuntary or not, to his family. 

But something tells him that what Steve is going through isn’t about this. It’s not the same. The look on Steve’s face isn’t mourning, it’s a deep longing for something Bucky doesn’t want to know what. 

It scares him. 

The fear creeps up to Bucky like cold waves lapping up a shore when he wakes up in the middle of the night and the other side of the bed is empty. Again. He gets up to find Steve outside the bedroom, standing before the large floor-to-ceiling windows. Steve is staring into space, a distant look in his eyes as the flickering city lights like stars against the deep blue night sky cast across the room. The world is always busy now, it’s nothing like the times they came from. 

Steve notices Bucky entering the living room and Bucky sees him wipe away the lost expression or whatever it was he was feeling. A soft smile lights up his face the way it does whenever he’s around Bucky. (But Bucky feels this is, in some way, no longer like the previous times and something is just _off_.)

“G’morning. You’re up early.” 

“It’s 4am, Steve. I should be sleeping. You should be in bed too.” _With me._

It’s not the first time Bucky has found Steve like this. 

Thanos has been defeated. But it wasn’t over, someone had to bring the infinity stones back to where they belonged, and obviously Steve, being the ever-willing and self-sacrificing soul, was going to do it. 

They deserved some rest before Steve did anything else, and Bucky needs to know why Steve can’t bring himself to get any. They’ve been given somewhere to stay temporarily as the Avengers’ quarters have been destroyed again. Bucky misses the small hut back in Wakanda, the joyful smiles of the children and even the frolicking goats. The times Steve would visit back then felt like the last time Bucky was at peace, at something close to happiness. Those moments he wanted to hold close to his heart forever seemed so brief. He hadn’t appreciated enough the times when things were simple. 

Bucky walks up to Steve, placing his hand at the back of his neck and the metal one against his cheek. He rests their foreheads together and they breathe the same air slowly. 

“I know, we should be asleep,” Steve says. He brings up his hands around both sides of Bucky’s face and presses his lips softly on Bucky’s eyelids. They share a kiss, short and tender, before Steve circles his arms around Bucky’s waist, pulling him in close. Bucky rests his head against Steve’s shoulder and they stand like that for a while, just being in the moment. 

“Hey. What’s wrong, Steve?” Bucky asks gently. 

There’s a few seconds of silence. Steve pulls away from the embrace, his hands still on Bucky’s waist. 

“It’s nothing. Just tired but can’t fall asleep. You know, the usual thing,” Steve says with a quirk to his lips. “Come on, let’s get back to bed. Everything’s fine.” 

Bucky wishes he can do that and pretend this never happened, but he has to address it sooner or later. He doesn’t follow when Steve tries to guide him back to the bedroom. 

“No. It’s not,” Bucky says. “I’ve known you my whole life, Steven Grant Rogers, even if I don’t remember all of it. I can tell when you’re not okay. Don’t try to lie to me.” 

Bucky pulls out a chair from the small dining table and sits down. 

“If something is wrong, you need to tell me, Steve.” 

Steve hesitates, looking like he might deny it. Eventually, he lets out a breath and gives in, taking in a seat too. 

“I saw her. Bucky, I saw her.” 

The lost, haunted look returns to Steve’s glassy blue eyes. Bucky doesn’t need to ask to know who ‘she’ is. 

“When I went back in time, she was right there. Like I was never trapped in ice. Ever since then, I can’t stop thinking about it. Not just about Peggy, but about the life I never had.” 

Steve presses his trembling hands to his face. 

“The time travel, it changed me, Buck. It’s replaced me with a man I don’t know, put something in me that was never there before. All of this feels like a dream and there’s this need to wake up to the past, to the reality I could have had,” Steve says. He breathes in shakily and it seems like he’s on the verge of tears, but after all he’s been through, there aren’t enough to spare for this. 

“It feels terrible, Buck, it feels _wrong_ and I don’t know what to do.” 

It tears Bucky apart to see Steve unraveling like this. They used to share a history, went through the same things even when they weren’t together. But everything with Thanos changed that. Outer space, time travel, the quantum realm were things Bucky couldn’t even begin to imagine were possible. They were like wild, crazy concepts he would hear about at a science fair in the twentieth century. Now they were all experiences Steve had actually went through, and for the first time ever, Bucky couldn’t connect with it. But he could see what it was doing to Steve, feel the pain twisting in him through the lifelong bond they had. He knows even after this Steve could put on a happy face, pretend everything was okay as if the things he did and saw didn’t actually break him on the inside. 

Bucky wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he held Steve back from the potential of having the life he never had. Not after everything Steve had done and sacrificed for him in this life. It was time to let the selfless Captain America do something for himself. Bucky didn’t understand time travel, its consequences and technicalities, but he understood enough that there was something Steve needed to do. 

Bucky puts his palms over Steve’s trembling hands and cradles them reassuringly. 

“It’s okay, Steve. You do what you need to do.” 

A confused frown crosses over Steve’s face but a second later, his eyes widen when he realizes what Bucky is talking about. He grasps Bucky’s hands desperately, shaking his head.

“No, no- Bucky, I can’t do that. Not to you-“ 

“You do it for the both of us. For what we’ve lost, the chances we’ve never had.”

“But- the shield?” 

At this point, Bucky knows Steve is just grabbing at straws and reasons to not do it. 

“Sam deserves it. It would feel wrong for me to hold something like that after what I did to the person who made it. Plus, I’ve got my own thing anyway,” Bucky says, shifting the ridges on his metal arm.

“Bucky...” Steve’s face is fixed in a grimace as if he’s in physical pain, battling the war raging on inside him. 

“Steve, whatever you choose to do, it’s going to be fine,” Bucky smiles even if it feels like a cut he’s marking across his own face. “Because I’m with you ‘til the end of the line.” 

━━━━⋆━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The five seconds pass in a flash before Bucky even knows it. He stands behind, fondly watching as Steve hands over a surprise to Sam. It’s not a very clear view from the distance he’s at, but Steve has aged, with lines on his face and silver streaking through his hair. It’s a strange sight Bucky never thought he’d behold. Like a thorn sticking into the side of his heart, it stings a bit to see Steve like this. 

_We were supposed to grow old together._

Sam comes back with a bright smile but a slightly furrowed brow. Bucky can feel the joy emanating off him in waves, but at the same time he also looks dazed and confused, like this isn’t really happening. Bucky understood what Sam felt because even though he was hiding it, he was feeling the same way too. Decades had passed for Steve but it had been merely five seconds for the both of them. Even if Bucky knew what Steve was going to do, it was barely enough time for him to process it. 

“Look at this, man,” Sam says, raising the shield on his arm. He’s looking at it in a mixture of awe and wonder, holding it more like a precious relic rather than his new tool. 

“You’ll get used to it. I know you will,” Bucky says with a grin. He pats a hand on Sam’s shoulder, brimming with pride. They hadn’t spent that much time together, yet it felt like they had already been friends for a long, long time. Steve had a good judgement in people and Sam was proof of that. 

“I can’t believe-“ Sam starts, but stops himself as he looks up from the shield and catches the expression on Bucky’s face. Bucky can see it slowly start to dawn upon him. 

“You cheeky bastard, you knew, you _knew_.”

Bucky’s smile grows wider. Like it was just an innocent prank Steve and him pulled on Sam. He doesn’t say anything and he isn’t sure if that’s because there’s nothing left to say or if he simply had no words for this.

Sam chuckles and slings an arm around Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky laughs harder, already feeling so thankful for Sam’s presence. To have one other person left who fought for him even when the whole world didn’t believe him. He knows things are going to change in the future, that he’ll meet other people too, but for now, he’s glad Sam is here as a friend. Maybe that was part of why Steve did it, because he knew there was a person he trusted here to pick up his place and be there for Bucky. 

There’s warmth in the air and a faint smile on Bucky’s face. He’s happy, he truly is. So why was there a tightness in his chest? It felt wrong that slightly, just slightly, his heart was breaking apart into little pieces. He could taste a ball of guilt at the back of his throat and he tries to make this feeling go away. He would have time to piece together his heart. One day, he would fully process what happened and this would all stop feeling like a crazy fever dream. 

Bucky begins to walk away into the opposite of the sunset, with Sam by his side and their arms around each other. But Sam pulls to a stop, looking at Bucky and then back behind them. 

“Don’t you want to speak to him?”

Bucky pauses.

“I already have.” 

And he continues to walk forward with Sam, not looking back behind them. 

Bucky knows this is the right thing to do. To move on. The figure gazing into the dying sunlight hasn’t looked back once. And he doesn’t have to. This Steve has reached the end of the line. But Bucky hasn’t, not yet. He can’t help feeling that, somehow, a promise was broken. 

At the very last second, Bucky’s head turns a fraction and he catches a final glimpse at the man sitting behind them. The soft golden rays of the setting sun reflected on the gentle waves of the lake, and Bucky could only imagine the expression on Steve’s face. He seemed so calm, so at peace with himself. It was like he was in a different world entirely, one Bucky couldn’t reach, not right now. 

Bucky wishes that somewhere in this universe with glowing superheroes, talking raccoons and time travel that there was an alternate timeline where Steve stays. It just wasn’t this one.

**Author's Note:**

> When Chris Evans said during the Shanghai press that if given the opportunity with the Time stone that Steve would go back to be with Peggy...I thought there was no way that was gonna happen and joked like how was he gonna explain he went to her funeral and smooched her niece? Then the ending happened and now I’m boo boo the fool.


End file.
